15 Responses to The closure of St. Vincent’s Hospital

That is very sad to hear. I remember that hospital when I lived in NYC. I believe it was also a “foundling” hospital as well. There is , however, a Catholic hospital on the upper east side. Used to Flower 5th Ave Hosp on 106th St. and 5th Ave. Now it is named for Cardinal o’Connor. I’m not sure who runs it. It is quite a large complex now but inconvenient to those on the lower east or west side. I will bet more Catholic hospitals will close with the new health care bill. I guess all we can do is pray. You will be in my prayers as you head to NYC.

I am in the hospital industry. It very well could be, that St. Vincent’s was acquired by other hospitals looking to dump their bad debt on poor St. Vincent’s, forcing it to close, and voila, all the bad debts of those hospitals, along with St. Vincent’s now vanishes! Not saying this is what happens, but I’ve seen it happen in Chicago.

As a resident of Queens, NY this is very dismal news…We just lost the last two Catholic Hospitals in Queens as well. St John’s, a fine hospital, and Mary Immaculate…Now to go to a Catholic hospital I must go to LI or Brooklyn where I believe one is left. St. J and MI went the same way. Once “merged” or whatever to cut cost they became unprofitable and mismanaged and were forced to close their doors..I pass by St. John’s most days and the grafitti on the boards covering the doors is ever so depressing. People are upset, angry with the way Catholic Hospitals have been run in recent years, and only to lose them all one by one.

Sadly, you will see this happening more and more and not just to Catholic hospitals. Part of the challenge is the way hospitals are reimbursed as well as the burden they have to prove patients did not acquire infections and other complications while in their care. For instance, Medicare will not pay for hospital-acquired infections, so hospitals have to jump through hoops before admitting patients to rule out the possibiity they were infected before admission. Also, with CMS and HCAHPS, hospitals are ranked according to patient satisfaction and other factors that will soon affect reimbursement as well. The average patient will have the ability to navigate these rankings to find out where their hospital and doctor falls in terms of infections, malpractice and other factors that could influence the decision of where to seek care. Hospitals that fall below a certain percentile stand to lose the most and will eventually fail. St. Vincent’s and the other recently-closed hospitals are the tip of the iceberg.

And here’s how the reporter described the Mass (which was the final one at the hospital:
“They gathered first for a noon Mass — held in the chapel but broadcast to overflow crowds — where a longtime hospital housekeeper sang and a psychiatric nurse danced, like a Jules Feiffer drawing come to life, in a spectral white dress and ballet slippers.”

Of course, in order to break the cycle, the Church has to look for QUALIFIED people willing to accept the working conditions and low pay, and they are tough to come by, especially when they have to put up with dissidence and other nonsense on a daily basis.

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